Arturo Fuente Hemingway Short Story Review

2026-09-11  Hand-Me-One · 2/4 My Money · by Eric

Filed under: Cameroon · Cigar Bands · Dominican Republic · Figurados · The Ash · Retrohale · Which Size, When

Verdict: The Arturo Fuente Hemingway Short Story is a Hand-Me-One (2/4) at about $8 street... construction and draw as good as I've had in a short cigar, wrapped around a dusty, leathery, mineral profile that built the whole way and is not the lane I'm looking for. If minerality and leather with very little sweetness is your thing, this is a really good cigar. It isn't mine.

Brand

Arturo Fuente

Line

Hemingway

Vitola

Short Story

Size

4 x 49

Wrapper

Cameroon

Binder

Dominican

Filler

Dominican

Made in

Dominican Republic

Factory

Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cía (Santiago)

Street price

$7.79

Fuente's Hemingway line, named for the author and around since 1983, is all perfectos... African Cameroon wrapper over Dominican binder and filler, rolled at Tabacalera A. Fuente in Santiago. The Short Story is the small one, 4 x 49 with a tapered foot, and probably the one most people meet first.

The Setup

• Cigar: Arturo Fuente Hemingway Short Story, perfecto (4 x 49). Cameroon wrapper, Dominican binder and filler, made at Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cía in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
• Street price: $7.79 for a single online, and the same $7.79 a stick at box price. Five-packs run a little under that. Call it about $8.
• What I paid: about street, at a brick-and-mortar shop, one of my local ones. My own money. I grabbed it as a single because it was cheap.
• Storage: the Herf coolidor at 69%. It's been in there a while... six or seven months, best guess.
• When/where: 9:40 at night on the back deck. 76°F, feels-like 78, 76% humidity, no wind at all. I picked it because it was late and it's short.
• Smoke time: about 50 minutes.
• Food beforehand: dinner around 6:30, a sirloin steak and mashed potatoes with water, and a San Pellegrino somewhere in the hours between.
• First cigar of the day, paired with water.

Light Up and First Half

Straight cut with the Xikar XO, and a very shallow one... maybe half the width of a penny off the head, because there just isn't much cigar to work with. Lit with the Guevara Lux single-flame torch. Not much toasting on a point like this, but I did what I could.

The cold draw was good, which surprised me on a tapered foot. There's a nice sweetness on the draw and on the retro, and when you lick your lips the sweetness is sitting right there too. To be clear, there is no sweetened cap on this cigar. Fuente doesn't do that. That's the leaf.

Toasting and lighting brought a nice breadiness, some spice, leather, and a touch of chocolate sweetness... not so much chocolate as the sweetness of chocolate. Leather is what lingers. On the retro there's a little earthiness, then a white pepper that hangs more at the back of the throat than on the tongue, and leather. That's about all the retro is giving up early.

Smoke production was good from the start.

A few minutes in it turned a touch dusty, with leather and a little earth. I remembered this cigar being a coffee cigar and I wasn't getting it. The burn on the point went wavy, which I expect on basically any figurado... you light such a small point that it has to catch the whole thing evenly as it opens up. I touched it up once and I don't count that against the cigar. That's a figurado thing, not a construction thing.

Just past the widest point, and burning even now, the flavor was dustiness, a very faint nuttiness, leather, and there was the touch of coffee. Maybe it just needed to be burning evenly for the coffee to show up.

I was only doing single draws on this one. On a ring gauge this small I could see the ember all the way around the wrapper on every draw, so there was no reason to double up. I did try a couple to see what changed, and what changed was bitterness... just up front, it didn't linger, but it was there, with leather and earth behind it. Single draws were the better cigar: dustiness, light nuttiness, leather, and coffee.

The retro was more complex than the draw the whole way through the first half: a dusty nuttiness together, leather, and something else in there I couldn't place. Since the touch-up the burn line had been basically razor sharp, the tiniest bit wavy if I'm looking for it.

Nearing the end of the first half the nuttiness got specific. Blow the draw out and it's peanut, a quick bit of dustiness, some minerality, then leather and a little coffee. On the retro, peanuts, a light minerality that lingers, and a little leather. And of course, right after I said razor sharp, the burn went a little wavy again. Not an issue. Past the point, the draw was basically perfect.

I went back and forth on ashing it, then did, because it was getting flaky. It came off clean in one tap and stayed together in the ashtray. Dropping the ash didn't move the flavor at all... same profile, no better, no worse: dusty, slightly nutty, some minerality, some leather, a little coffee on the finish. Retro: peanut, minerality, leather, not much else.

The band had been loose from the start... it slid off while I was taking the cigar out of the cello, and I slid it back on, because I like the band on until the burn gets to it. When the burn got close, right about the midway point, I slid it back off. Nothing under it, nothing wrong with the wrapper, and it wasn't glued to the cigar. I didn't bother checking how well it was glued to itself.

Second Half

A little way into the second half the story of this cigar started to write itself. The minerality was building, and it had become the main tone. Still some dustiness, still some nuttiness... sometimes peanuts, sometimes just a general nuttiness... but that minerality was on every draw and every retro, and I could feel it stacking up on my palate. I hadn't had any water yet, so I took a sip to see if resetting it helped. Burn was razor sharp again. Draw still excellent.

One more double draw, just to see. Totally unnecessary on this cigar, but I got a good hit of general nuttiness up front, and then a large hit of minerality behind it.

About halfway through the second half the flavor hadn't dipped at all. It just kept shifting a little as it went. The minerality was more prominent, the nuttiness was mostly gone, and the draw was dustiness, leather, and coffee, with that minerality across the whole thing. Water helped reset it. On the retro: a light nuttiness, minerality, leather, and coffee. And I realized I'd been skipping something: there's a white pepper on the retro that was there from the first draw and never left. It never ramped up either. Just a mild white pepper, all night. Behind everything there was a very light cream on the long finish.

Three quarters of the way through the second half, the ash was really good... tight and stacking well. The main tones for me by then were dustiness and minerality, and on the retro a slight nuttiness, minerality, and leather.

At the end, with not much left, the ash was still very tight, the burn straight, the draw excellent. The cup of water had been my friend. From the midway point on the minerality just kept building, and each draw added a little more. Water didn't get rid of it, but it refreshed things enough to keep going. The draw was mostly dustiness and leather, with the occasional bit of nuttiness or coffee showing up. The retro stayed that same mild white pepper, minerality, and leather.

With about three quarters of an inch left I took a draw to check for heat, and even at that length, on a ring gauge this small, I could take a full draw comfortably and get just a tiny bit of warmth at the end of it. They did a really good job on the construction of this thing. I ashed it there, and there was still a nice point on the foot... the ligero in the center burning a little slower than the rest, the way a perfecto should. One draw after that ash was all dust, and I put it down.

Construction

• Wrapper: a little splotchy, otherwise clean, and it looks to be a single cap.
• Draw: good on the cold draw, which surprised me on a tapered foot, and basically perfect once I was past the point. Excellent all the way through.
• Burn: one touch-up at the very beginning, when the point was catching, and I don't count that against a figurado. After that, razor sharp with a tiny wave now and then. No relights.
• Ash: a little flaky in the first half, and I ashed it once at the midpoint because of that. Tight and stacking well in the second half. The midpoint ash came off clean in one tap and stayed together in the ashtray.
• Smoke output: good the whole way, no dips.
• Band: loose from the start, slid off with the cello, went back on, and came off clean at the midpoint. Not glued to the wrapper at all.

Bottom Line

This is a really well made cigar. Great draw, great burn, good ash, good smoke production, and no dips anywhere... the flavors just adjusted a little as I went. What they adjusted toward was the problem for me. Dustiness and leather were the main tones from the first inch, with nuttiness and coffee drifting in and out, and a minerality that started building at the midpoint and never stopped. Each draw stacked a little more of it on my palate. Water helped. It never went away. There was a touch of sweetness on the cold draw, a little cream way back on the finish, and not much else in the sweet column, and sweetness is what I'm usually chasing.

If minerality is something you enjoy, and you like a lot of leather and very little sweetness, this is a really good cigar at the money. That just isn't my lane.

Would I smoke it again? Hand-Me-One (2/4). If someone handed me one I'd smoke it, and I wouldn't feel bad about it. I wouldn't pay for another, and I wouldn't keep any in the humidor. It's not that I couldn't smoke one again... it's that I wouldn't go looking. What I will do is give the Maduro a proper look. I had the Hemingway Maduro Short Story before this site existed and remember chocolate. If it brings the sweetness with this same construction, a cheap, well-built 50-minute cigar is exactly the kind of short smoke I'd keep around.

Best for: a late night when you want a real cigar and only have an hour. Someone whose lane is leather and mineral more than sweet. Keep water next to you.

My scale, one question only... would I spend my own money on this again? 4 Box Buy (box on hand, always) / 3 Five-Pack (yes, a few live in the humidor) / 2 Hand-Me-One (wouldn't buy it, wouldn't turn one down) / 1 Not Even Free (I'd rather smoke nothing).

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